The Phillies Zone

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Lots of activity at the winter meetings; none so far for the Phillies. That could be the case for the duration of these meetings, Ruben Amaro Jr. said.

Of course, he may or may not be telling the truth. But here's what he said:

(Is Chad Durbin still in play?)
"We're keeping our minds open on all the possibilities. If we had our druthers, we'd probably lean more toward the left side if we could. But we haven't closed any doors on anybody."

(So you prefer lefties?)

"We've had some discussions with more 'back-end' righthanders who may be an even better fit. You can win championships without a lefthanded reliever. It's more about having quality depth."

Writer's note: Looking at the list of "back-end righthanders," we point to Bobby Jenks and Kerry Wood as the most obvious candidates. Neither would cost a draft pick to sign. But that's purely speculation.

(Is it prudent to wait this market out?)

"I don't have any urgency to do something right now. It's not about doing it quickly, it's about doing it right."

(Do you have enough young arms to fill the bullpen, if needed?)
"I think we do. I'd like to open it up to a competition, which would be good. I would like to get some young players onto our major-league club who could help us. We're going to create a situation where two or three spots may be up for grabs. I like that flexibility and competition."

(Where do you see the right field situation at?)
"We're still trying to assess if a platoon situation would be as productive.While it doesn't sound on paper as ideal, a platoon of Ross Gload and Ben Francisco may very well produce enough offense for us to continue to be a championship-caliber club. We're still assessing if that's the route we want to take. The issue in that scenario is if we get the same type of defense, and that's a concern.

If we had our druthers, we'd rather put Domonic in a position to get the at-bats he kind of lost last year and prepare himself better -- work on his outfield, his baserunning. In a perfect world, we don't need Domonic to make our club, unless he shows us in spring training that he's ready to take that next step. In a perfect world, I'd like to get him some more at-bats to have him develop more."

(So you don't want to platoon Brown?)
"It's one of those situations, you just don't know when a guy is going to be ready."

(What is the challenge in picking a free-agent outfielder?)
"That's the trick. Are any of these guys better than Francisco? There's no reason for us to go outside if we believe we have better internally."